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October 1-7 is National Ethnic Studies Week and the School of Social Transformation invites the ASU community to a lecture on October 3 and a teach-in/panel discussion on October 6 to mark the occasion.

Activist, community organizer, and former prisoner Eddy Zheng will speak about his experiences and perspectives concerning youth, education, immigration, and the prison industrial complex, as well as coming into political consciousness while reading ethnic studies texts behind bars.

Eddy Zheng is a Chinese immigrant who spent 21 years of his life in prison for crimes he committed at the age of 16. Since his return to the free world, Eddy has dedicated his life to serving the youth and communities of the greater Bay Area. Currently Eddy is a Project Manager with the Community Youth Center of San Francisco. He is a Mayor Appointee of the San Francisco Reentry Council, a member of the board of directors for the San Francisco’s Neighborhood Vision Project, a national advisory board member of the Asian American Law Journal, a member of the Community Police Advisory Board, and the co-chair of Asian Prisoners Support Committee, based in Oakland. Eddy led a book project that culminated in the publication of Other: An Asian and Pacific Islander Prisoners’ Anthology and is the subject of a forthcoming documentary, “Breathin’: The Eddy Zheng Story.” He hopes to use his experiences to inspire and motivate young people to invest in their education, raise awareness about the detrimental impact that the prison industrial complex has on the Asian and Pacific Islander population, and promote racial harmony among people of color.

The talk will be introduced by Jeffrey Ow, lecturer in Asian Pacific American Studies in the School of Social Transformation.